N B T S C Bedtimes The Worst Idea Since Sliced Fingers

This is a letter Zack wrote and sent to Grace and The Staff on Thursday, April 5.

• And Grace's Reply!!!!![1]

• Do Not Change The Text Of The Letter Please
• [note: I wikified the formattin a little, the letter will be pure text-based. The words are all exactly as the letter will be.

letter begins below here:

[Editor's Note: This letter is meant to be equal parts constructive criticism, helpful brainstorming, and heartfelt objection. P.s., I didn't know what e-mail would be best so I used all of the ones that I thought might be, sorry 'bout the repetition.]

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NBTSC Bedtimes: The Worst Idea Since Sliced Fingers.

Dear NBTSC Staff,

I realize the idea of bedtimes at camp is well intentioned, but I feel that it would be a bad idea. There are many other ways to promote health at NBTSC. I feel that slapping a rule on the problem of camp illness would be ineffective and highly destructive. I feel that it would cause serious strife at camp, and more division and hard feelings within the camp community than anything else ever has. Moreover, I personally would be greatly disappointed with the staff if they chose to make a bedtime rule. It would go against the core belief of unschooling - that kids are capable of making their own decisions.

• Reasons Why People Get Sick At Camp:

• 1) Food and water that they're systems are not accustomed to.
• 2) Close contact with 120 people, carrying germs from all over the planet.
• 3) The fact that unschoolers' immune systems are not used to dealing with so many people in close proximity.
• 4) Sleeping in cabins (differences in temperature, mattress, pillow, etc.)
• 5) Sleeping outside in the field. (Generally a bad idea health-wise should be strongly discouraged.)
• 6) Long transportation times to camp (airplanes are flu playgrounds).
• 7) Over-stimulation. (It's our once a year social life. It's good stress, but it is stress.)
• 8) Lack of Sleep.

It is true that enough sleep is one of the very best ways to keep your immune system healthy, however:

• 1) A bedtime would not get rid of the reasons people get sick at camp, only boost people's immune systems to protect against those reasons better.
• 2) There are other very good methods of boosting the immune system.
• 3) Unhappy campers are not healthy campers.

• Other Ways To Keep People Healthy At Camp:

Vitamin C. Fresh Garlic. Fresh Ginger. Siberian Ginseng. Echinacea. Astragalus. Breathing Exercises (like during morning meeting?) Tea. Water.

Could some or all of these be supplied en-mass at camp? Could there be a pot of tea on at all times? Could the chefs spice up the meals with fresh garlic and ginger? (Or could there be freshly chopped garlic & ginger as an optional topping at meals?) Even if you couldn't supply any or all of those things, (or even if you could!), you could recommend people bring their own health supplements. You could even send a letter to everyone coming to camp (and their parents,) inviting (urging!) them to bring along their own health supplements and perhaps even some to share.

I would also suggest people bring small water bottles (labeled with first and last name), for three reasons: 1) If people used personal water bottles most of the time (and didn't share) that's one less possible way to exchange germs. 2) There would be fewer cups to wash (yay!). 3) If people used fairly small water bottles that could be carried about, and were encouraged to do so and keep drinking, they might get considerably more water into their systems, and water is very, very healthy stuff. (trust the massage therapist on this one, nobody drinks enough water, and it's very healthy stuff.)

I would hate to see a rule against people piles at night in the field (the stars are gorgeous), but sleeping all night in a sleeping bag in the field has to be about the worst health decision anyone has the opportunity to make at camp. (Maybe a staff member should be assigned to go out into the field ever hour or so at night to make sure big groups of people aren't fast asleep, destined to wake up with dew on their noses.)

I don't know as much as I should about this, but I would like to suggest that the staff see if they can find any research that has been done on circadian rhythms of teenagers. Or a more direct approach - do a survey of campers and ask their usual sleeping habits. I never get up as early in normal life as we do at camp. Dare I suggest a lot of people might go to sleep at the same time weather breakfast is at 8am or 10am? Maybe we wouldn't, but maybe it's worth looking into and/or trying.

• How Would A Bedtime Be Enforced?

To quote Summer, discussing this on wiki; "Are you going to force people to sleep in their cabins so they won't talk? Otherwise, you have a situation (Rhymi suggested this one) where people are talking and hanging out in their sleeping bags anyway, but you can't get up and move from one spot to another for fear of getting busted." That would stifle the trust and respect between campers and staff, and would kill the atmosphere of camp more than being forced into the cabins at a set time. I don't see how there could be a bedtime rule without a sleep in the cabins rule.

Forced bedtimes and sleeping in bunks would mean:

• 1) Staff searching the camp and forcing campers to go to bed.
• 2) A large number of campers going into the cabins all at once, which could disturb the sleep of anyone in bed already.
• 3) This would kill the (wonderful) tradition of sleeping in people piles in the lodge.

Those are some serious problems, and they're just the ones that would happen even if everyone basically thought this was a good idea. But a lot of people don't. And if people don't respect the rule then you get:

• 1) Campers trying to sneak, and staffers trying to catch them.
• 2) Campers staying up all night out in the woods where they won't be found instead of cozy and warm in the lodge.
• 3) Campers lying about how much sleep they got if anyone asks them why they look tired.
• 4) Division instead of unity.
• 5) Angry Campers.
• 6) Civil Disobedience.

I think one of the more charming traits of unschoolers is how we tend to not take it when we feel oppressed, and how we tend to not follow rules we find offensive and unnecessary. Besides that, camp is our home and we'd like to feel that our ability to make our own choices is respected in our home. I would probably keep my objections to noisy (but rule following) discontentment, but I am willing to bet some people wouldn't.

• Reasons Why Those Of Us Strongly Opposed To Bed Times Feel That Way:

• 1) We feel that trust and respect for campers being able to make their own decisions is a fundamental part of camp, and that being told "you must go to bed at X time, it's for your own good" violates that trust and respect.
• 2) We feel that camp is something we look forward to for the whole year, and want to experience to it's fullest. This means we want to be awake for as much of it as we can. This means some of us want to fall asleep in a pile of people in the lodge at who-knows-when. And this also means we want to stay healthy, and most of us want to get enough sleep to be coherent when we're awake.
• 3) We feel that at night after all the scheduled activities are over is when we can dance to music in the lodge, have 5 hour conversations without worrying about needing to remember to do something else, etc. We are Unschoolers and we need unstructured time to go wherever our imaginations take us.
• 3) We feel that Grace & Taber have great talents in encouraging intelligent behavior without invoking strongly opposed top down rules, and that Grace & Taber are great at finding creative win-win solutions to problems.
• 4) We feel that Grace, Taber, and the rest of the staff could and should do a lot more towards finding a win-win solution to camp illness before slapping on a rule that so many people oppose.

I don't claim to speak for all campers, but I've talked personally with quite a few new & long time campers who think that bedtimes are a very bad idea, for many, many reasons.

I urge the staff to keep an eye on http://www.nbtsc.org/wiki/BedTime. I understand it was e-mailed to Grace at some point, but it keeps growing as more and more campers share their views.

• Thank you for listening.

• Sincerely,
• Zack Shuman

• People Who Have Read This Letter And Asked To Have Their Names Listed At The Bottom To Show Their Support:

[30 names where listed here, for various reasons I'm not going to post them.]

• A Few Thoughts I Got From People Who Read This Letter:

"add my name to that list man, because this will be my first year at camp...and I am incapable of turning in to sleep before 1 30."

"I personally would enjoy a later wake up time instead [of a bed time], as It would fit far better with my 'natural' rhythms"

"Another thing that you forgot to add, that I am not sure if you would like to, but I'll speak up anyway, is that SUGAR is not good for you at all when you are trying to stay healthy, and that more and more people bring pounds of candy to camp every year, and pass it out as if it was... well, candy! And I have noticed, along with a lot of the people that I talk to, that we stay pretty healthy, until we get our hands on some sugar, then it all goes down hill from there."

"You might want to mention, that the people who would be stuck, enforcing the bedtime are the people with the most responsiblity and are the people who are going to need sleep the most."

[1]that's the end of my letter, here's Grace's reply:

"Taber and I decided a month or two ago not to make a bedtime ruleour feeling is that a rule is not how we really want to address this issue and, as you say, is not in keeping with our desire to support people in taking responsibility for themselves (at camp and in life in general). We will, however, address the bedtime issue directly in other ways. I totally agree with you that lack of sleep is only one of many factors contributing to the sickness at camp; I also agree with you that sleep makes for a stronger immune system, which makes for less sickness. So we will do some things to promote more sleeping at camp, and we will do other things to promote better health in general at camp. Your ideas are greatwe'll incorporate many of them into the plan we're working on."